"We are women who happened to model," the two told me, "not models
who happen to be women. The difference boils down to this: "The modeling
profession includes a high proportion of women with a fragile personality
that makes them potentially self-destructive--women with what we call
'extreme narcissistic vulnerability.'" In fact, they contend, "the
profession doesn't simply attract and embrace women with this problem. It
actively supports and reinforces it."
A MAGIC CARPET RIDE
Diller and Muir-Sukenick drew on their own personal experience,
their interviews, and their own professional practices. They began to see
some common themes and identified two major trajectories models take.
There were young women who were very Successful, who did very well
modeling, then left and did something else with their life, and were very
satisfied. Then there were all the others, who were successful as models
but, when the acclaim and adulation died down, ended up on drugs or
alcohol.
"It's like a magic carpet ride," say the therapists. "Some conic
down with a crash. But some glide to a landing; they have memories of a
wonderful, exciting, glamorous experience, and now their lives are
ordinary."
"I think any model will tell you that modeling's a very unreal
world," says Diller. "You're 14, 15, 16. You're in this world of
photographers. Lots of money. Lots of parties. Lots of adulation. And
when it comes to an end, slowly or abruptly, it's not easy to negotiate
your way back into reality. I went from making tons of money working only
so often, to having to work 9 to 5 making average money. It's a
letdown."
"Making it" in modeling has nothing to do with looks, Diller and
Muir-Sukenick told me. "The models who crashed shared a particular
personal history. They came from a background that had not supported a
solid sense of themselves. When there's a definition of yourself as
something other than just what people see, it's easier to take the next
step."
THE MAKEUP OF MODELS
Many models, the therapists observed, come from the lower middle
class. This turns out to be crucial; they tend to have parents who are
not highly educated, and they have little sense of their futures. They
often grow up with a single parent, or have a childhood marked by some
kind of trauma. Their parents often have problems of their own,
depression, alcoholism, drug problems. Muir-Sukenick says, "They are
often the oldest child who unwittingly feels a sense of responsibility
and a compelling need to rescue the disappointing parent or their
family." "These are girls looking for fairy godmothers and/or knights in
armor," say the two. They are not necessarily pursuing modeling--it tends
to find them, as modeling agencies regularly scout new talent in the
malls of America. So when they are invited into the world of modeling,
they eagerly go. "Reality is not where they want to be; it is not an
affirming, comfortable, secure place."
With an invitation in hand, many of them drop out of high school.
"A girl from a more stable family that has strong values and goals is not
likely to interrupt her high school education and go off to Japan [where
new models now break in] without grave reservations, but these girls
will. Their mothers are often more focused on the reflected glory of
their child's immediate success than on her long-term future."
For a child to develop a solid sense of self, a parent must be
emotionally in tune, responsive, and available to the child. "In our
studies," reports Diller, "we have found unsupportive, inappropriate
parent-child interactions to be unusually common in the background of
models who do not do well after modeling.When we explored their family
history, there was frequently a relationship between the child and the
mother that was not emotionally supportive."
NARCISSISTIC VULNERABILITY
It is a necessary phase of development that each of us experiences
being the apple of our parents' eyes, Diller and Muir-Sukenick emphasize.
The parent tells the child, "You are the most beautiful." In this the
adult acts as a kind of affirming mirror. It is the process by which the
self solidifies and a child develops a core sense of having value.
Reality sets in as we grow. "There's a gradual transition-- and it
has to be gradual--to feeling, 'Well, I may be wonderful but I'm not
perfect.' If a parent builds you up too much, it creates a shakiness, and
if a parent never builds you up, you never satisfy the need of feeling so
grand."
"There's a real lack of affirmation on the part of the parent to
acknowledge the child as separate and worthy," Diller explains. Such a
child can only feel good about herself if she's pleasing that parent. The
parent may applaud the child, but the message is 'aren't you wonderful,
aren't we wonderful, aren't I wonderful.'
A model whose parents have nourished her self-esteem and been role
models for her to idealize develops healthy narcissism. She looks in the
mirror and says, "I like myself." She acknowledges her attractiveness,
feels lucky because of it, enjoys it, and integrates it with other
aspects of how she defines herself. If, on the other hand this belief is
not supported early in life, a child's self is not properly developed.
She becomes what Diller and Muir-Sukenick call narcissistically
vulnerable. She will look to the outside world for approval. In extreme
cases, she can feel so unworthy that she has a constant need to have the
outside world proclaim her extraordinary, great, unique.
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